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JWM - Buttery Sparkles (Buttersynth Experimental Ambient)

Yeah it's a stupid title, shut up. 😆

So I signed up to beta test the Buttersynth beta by @Kirnu on iOS, and after initial testing of this beast of a synth, I realised "Hey, why not build an Ambient track around it?" So I did.

There are four sonic elements to this track. The low end is actually the random sound of the day from Freesound (a sizzling grill) stretched in PaulXStretch and recorded into Gauss. Since the resulting audio was longer than 45 seconds, I slowed Gauss down prior to recording in order to get all the audio into the loop. (Yes, slowing down Gauss prior to recording extends the time you can record into it, but at a loss of quality, much like how real tape behaves!)

And after recording, I slowed the sizzling grill down even further and enabled 1989 mode. And I dipped out the mids a little with AUM's one-band parametric EQ and ran that into FabFilter Saturn for a little tasty distortion. Now we achieved a proper low end.

Next is the drone. This was achieved with Buttersynth using a custom two-part wavetable and filter to achieve that warm sound. I recorded it into Gauss and slowed it down. The only thing I added was AUM's highpass filter to shave a little low end off to make space for the sizzling grill sound.

Next were the plucks. Buttersynth was brought back into play yet again, this time driven by Rozeta Particles for a generative element. I recorded the output into Gauss and slowed that down. Then I added in Panflow to give some movement to the sound, Bleass' Delay, and a highpass filter to shave off the low end.

Finally, I created a sort of secondary drone (not all drones are low and warm), but a "sparkling" type of drone to complete the high end of the spectrum. This was crafted in Buttersynth, recorded into Gauss, and slowed down. I added Bleass' Reverb to give it a sense of space. Then I shaved off a lot of low-end with a highpass filter and dipped an aggravating ringing sound out with AUM's parametric EQ so to make it smoother.

As usual, the elements were routed to a master buss. I added Korvpressor first so not to affect the dynamics of the effects that followed, which were Stratosphere Reverb, Baby Audio's Crystalline, ChowTape, and a peak limiter to catch any stray peaks (which this time there were none).

And of course I used lowpass filters to filter the elements in and out, controlled live by KB-1 CC MIDI control.

I feel so honoured to be able to test Buttersynth! It's a game-changing beast of a synth. Cheers and enjoy!

Comments

  • Buttery Sparkles should be your username…

  • @TheOriginalPaulB said:
    Buttery Sparkles should be your username…

    Heh. So what did you think of the piece of music?

  • @jwmmakerofmusic said:

    @TheOriginalPaulB said:
    Buttery Sparkles should be your username…

    Heh. So what did you think of the piece of music?

    I liked the textures. I’d be interested to hear a Buttersynth only track to find out if the elements I liked were due to the synth or the timestretched samples.

  • Another excellent soundscape especially when the ringing and sparkles come in from 05:00. They lift it nicely to another level. 👍

  • @jwmmakerofmusic said:
    Yeah it's a stupid title, shut up. 😆
    ...
    I feel so honoured to be able to test Buttersynth! It's a game-changing beast of a synth. Cheers and enjoy!

    Thanks! Sounds very nice :) I'm glad that ButterSynth inspires you to make sounds like this one.
    Please spread the word so everyone gets to know about ButterSynth.

    -Arto

  • I love it when you go to a top tier restaurant and the menu has a complete explanation of the food you are about to eat... There are some vegetarian restaurants around San Francisco that do that... Alice Waters and the "eat local" types.

    There's a chinese restaurant that has a great Anthony Bourdain review in their waiting area... there's always a wait due to his recognition of the quality of the food.

    So, learning how to take standard IOS ingredients and mix up a plate of Ambience is like a journey to another culture for me. Thanks for the education and the guide book.

    I do hope you check out long IR files as another path besides always using Gauss. I suspect some of the code is similar in design... just folding back echo on echo until there are few pulses but just a steady rush of water.

  • @TheOriginalPaulB said:

    @jwmmakerofmusic said:

    @TheOriginalPaulB said:
    Buttery Sparkles should be your username…

    Heh. So what did you think of the piece of music?

    I liked the textures. I’d be interested to hear a Buttersynth only track to find out if the elements I liked were due to the synth or the timestretched samples.

    Well in this case, I can explain it easy. The tonal sounds are all Buttersynth recorded into Gauss. The atonal low-end rumble is the stretched "grill sizzle" sound. :)

    @Spidericemidas said:
    Another excellent soundscape especially when the ringing and sparkles come in from 05:00. They lift it nicely to another level. 👍

    Thank you so much mate. :) The deeper I dive into crafting Ambient this way, the more sonically complex I dare to try to become.

    @Identor said:

    Hahaha! 🤣🤣💀 That's awesome mate, lol. I guess my addiction to producing drone music is pretty well-known by now. 🤭

    @Kirnu said:
    Thanks! Sounds very nice :) I'm glad that ButterSynth inspires you to make sounds like this one.

    I'm glad you dig it. 😃 Thank you, and thank you for this amazing synth! It's unlike any synth on iOS (as, to my knowledge, no other synth allows me to draw in my own waveforms with a pen and line tool like Buttersynth can).

    Please spread the word so everyone gets to know about ButterSynth.

    -Arto

    Absolutely! :) If there's no NDA (afaik there is none), I'll definitely disclose more about the synth publicly. Just let me know what I am and am not allowed to share with others.

    @McD said:
    I love it when you go to a top tier restaurant and the menu has a complete explanation of the food you are about to eat... There are some vegetarian restaurants around San Francisco that do that... Alice Waters and the "eat local" types.

    There's a chinese restaurant that has a great Anthony Bourdain review in their waiting area... there's always a wait due to his recognition of the quality of the food.

    I absolutely love restaurants that take the time to explain the menu items in such a way too. It's a special event for me to dress up and dine at such a place.

    So, learning how to take standard IOS ingredients and mix up a plate of Ambience is like a journey to another culture for me. Thanks for the education and the guide book.

    Absolutely mate. :) It's why I write out such long explanations, to help educate and show people one of many, many ways of doing things.

    I do hope you check out long IR files as another path besides always using Gauss. I suspect some of the code is similar in design... just folding back echo on echo until there are few pulses but just a steady rush of water.

    AH YES! My dopey brain forgot to try that out yesterday, lol. OKAY, SO, I'm going to give this a shot today. I wonder what wav from Freesound I should download as my custom IR. 🤔 I'm feeling cheeky, so I may use a surprising recording, lol.

  • McDMcD
    edited July 2022

    @jwmmakerofmusic said:
    I wonder what wav from Freesound I should download as my custom IR. 🤔 I'm feeling cheeky, so I may use a surprising recording, lol.

    Try Thafknar using the iPad or iPhone mic after all it's only going to be used to make another audio source "resonate" for minutes.

    Record any household appliance for music that makes a great drone. Try NOT to use your usual workflow of Guass+PaulStretch. I'm betting you won't need it and with your own recordings for the IR you really own the results... call it "found drones". How many vacuum cleaners or electric drills or blenders or electric toothbrushes do you have at hand? They will just pull impulses into machine like drones.

    I have done this with many apps that allow recordings for the audio content but I've never published that style of music because I don't have your confidence in this form of art that is so orthogonal to what people think music needs to be to be called music. I'm too insecure to wear that avant garde fashion jumpsuit and leave the house.

  • @jwmmakerofmusic said:

    Absolutely! :) If there's no NDA (afaik there is none), I'll definitely disclose more about the synth publicly. Just let me know what I am and am not allowed to share with others.

    You can freely discuss about it now. Remember that it's still in beta and there still exist some minor issues

  • @McD said:

    @jwmmakerofmusic said:
    I wonder what wav from Freesound I should download as my custom IR. 🤔 I'm feeling cheeky, so I may use a surprising recording, lol.

    Try Thafknar using the iPad or iPhone mic after all it's only going to be used to make another audio source "resonate" for minutes.

    Well I did try IMPULSator in my latest piece, and it was fun. :) I'll muck about with Thafknar tomorrow.

    Record any household appliance for music that makes a great drone. Try NOT to use your usual workflow of Guass+PaulStretch.

    Ah, if only. Gauss and PaulXStretch are like strong drugs I'm heavily addicted to. 🤣

    I'm betting you won't need it and with your own recordings for the IR you really own the results... call it "found drones". How many vacuum cleaners or electric drills or blenders or electric toothbrushes do you have at hand? They will just pull impulses into machine like drones.

    Well, I do have access to unlimited sounds of the sort on Freesound. 😉 Right, tomorrow, I'll try something without Gauss and PaulXStretch and with Thafknar. It sounds absolutely interesting.

    I have done this with many apps that allow recordings for the audio content but I've never published that style of music because I don't have your confidence in this form of art that is so orthogonal to what people think music needs to be to be called music.

    Ah, the everyday person. Right, most people don't consider Ambient and Experimental as music, unless it's Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream for some reason. :lol: Most of those who respect the artform are often other "art" musicians. My problem is, I'm totally out of ideas when it comes to creating EDM/Pop. Or maybe it's just a burn out. Or maybe it's just I'm plain uninterested in that and am more fascinated by David Lynch than David Foster. 😂

    I'm too insecure to wear that avant garde fashion jumpsuit and leave the house.

    I will say this much...the only rule when it comes to creating Experimental, Musique Concrete, Ambient, etc is "who gives a fuck about rules?" Sure, traditional Western music theory is great to know! It helped me create chord progressions and melodies over the years that are beyond what one finds in most modern Pop/EDM/Trance music. BUT, avant-gard music is more about the expression of self rather than sticking to any rules.

    Avant-gard a far more forgiving form of sound-making than, say, constructing a Pop song, which doesn't necessarily require a deep level of music theory knowledge, but DOES require a person to have chops when coming up with a handful of catchy hooks (melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and lyrical!) In other words, it takes talent cultivated over the years to create a song that sounds like it was chucked out by a talentless hack. 🤣 (At least if the Billboard Top 40 is anything to go by.)

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